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Human history
Human history has been recorded for over thousands of years. Traditionally, the ancient Egyptian kingdom on Earth, which was founded around 5500 BC, and the earlier Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia are considered the first human civilizations. The Distant Past Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, amino acids combine to the first proteins in the region of Earth which would later form modern France, in Europe. It is the first life on the planet, which will one day evolve into the human species. (TNG: "All Good Things...) The Classical Period Approximately 5000 years ago, Earth was visited by aliens who settled in the region near Greece and the Mediterranean sea. They were worshipped by the ancient Greeks as gods. (TOS: "Who Mourns for Adonais?") In the Greek city-state of Athens, democracy was first practiced; a form of state which even by the 24th century still forms the basis of Federation politics. However, some viewed Athens as an indecisive state and it was later conquered by Sparta, a Greek city-state which was fond of war. In 510 BC, the Roman Republic was founded in the city of Rome, Italy. In 23 BC, Octavian was named Emperor Augustus by the Roman Senate, turning the republic into an empire. The Roman Empire expanded considerably over the centuries, spreading its culture throughout Europe, until it finally collapsed in 476, being conquered by northern invaders. This event embarked Earth's Dark Ages. Ancient civilizations had emerged in Asia and the Indian subcontinent by this time, leading to the formation of the nation of China and to the formation of the ancient Hindu religion. In the Middle East, the pre-Classical Greek Minoan culture was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, triggering mass migrations throughout the ancient world. Among the peoples to migrate from Egypt to Caanan are a group of tribes that would later become known as the Israelites, who would later create the foundation of Judaism -- forming, with influence from Zoroastrianism, one of the first monotheistic religions. After the Roman conquest of Judea, the region once known as Caanan, Israel, and which would later be known as Palestine, Judaism gave rise to Christianity and to Islam. A number of ancient African trading empires had evolved by this point, as well, as had aboriginal cultures in Australasia and the Americas. One of the most powerful of the African empires was the nation of Ethiopia. Renaissance The European Dark Ages were marked by the fall of the Roman Empire, extreme political disunity, wars, and a decrease in technological development and communications. The Roman Catholic Church assumed a great deal of political power after having risen to prominence within the former Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine, degenerating from an organization preaching tolerance, respect, and universal love into an organization mostly concerned with power, wealth, and prestige. Little progress was made on the scientific, philosophical, and artistic fields. The Renaissance, which was enlighted by the growing trade with the eastern Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Empire of the Middle East following the Crusades, let Europe rediscover its classical heritage. It was in this time that Galileo Galilei build his first astronomical telescope. His observations about the moon, planets in the solar system, the sun, and individual stars in the Milky Way confirmed Copernican theories that Earth indeed was not the centre of the universe. Humanity's ancient impulse to understand the universe -- which had given rise to ancient religions and, in the best of circumstances, still guided those beliefs -- had evolved; empiricism would eventually come to dominate Humanity's understanding of the physical world. (STARTREK.com Key Events in Exploration History) Imperialism and Revolution By the 17th and 18th century, Europe's most powerful nations had colonized much of the world. Rising discontent over British rule of its American colonies caused the outbreak of the American Revolution. In 1776, the United States of America was founded, and its constitution would later form part of the basis for that of the United Federation of Planets, founded almost 350 years later. The American Revolution inspired the citizens of France to rise up against the ruling king. The principles of the French Revolution would inspire European philosophy for over a century, but would also lead to numerous deaths and to the rise of Napolean Bonaparte. European powers would continue to vie for researches for decades to come. World Wars and Cold War The First World War (perhaps a misnomer, since the war was fought between European or European-derived nations), initially referred to as the Great War, was the culmination of over a century's worth of tensions between the European colonial powers. The war was fought mostly on the European continent from 1914 to 1918, being the first to deploy a whole new arsenal of modern warfare, including tanks and poison gas. The war was won by the Allied nations, which included the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. The Czar of Russia had been overthrown by Bolzhevik revolution shortly before the war ended, leading to the establishment of the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics", aka the Soviet Union, a so-called "Communist" dictatorship that violated the principles upon which traditioal socialism and Marxism had been established. German discontent over its defeat, combined with the world-wide Great Depression and the severe punishment brought upon the nation by the Allies, caused the Nazi Party, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, to rise and becoming the largest party by 1933. Under Hitler's genocidal leadership, the country soon became militaristic, invading several of its neighbouring nations while embarking upon a campaign to murder every single Jew on the face of the Earth -- the "Holocaust". In 1939, war was declared by Britain and France, following the German invasion of Poland, leading to the outbreak of World War II. :See also: World War II. World War II resulted in German defeat. Though the allies established an international organization known as the United Nations in an attempt to promote world peace, an awkward situation resulted as the Soviet Union and the United States refused to retreat from the parts of Europe they had freed from the Germans, and now held occupied - fearful that the other might try to take over their war gains. The United States, with reduced troop number in Europe but with a newly acquired nuclear weapon in hand, defied the USSR to come any further west, or the meddle in the affairs of the liberal democractic governments there. Likewise, the Soviets defied the United States to intervene as the Soviet military occupation replaced the governments in the eastern sector with Stalinist regimes. Shortly afterwards, the USSR successfully tested their first nuclear weapon. Fearing that Russia would soon destroy them, the United States built hundreds of nuclear weapons, as did the Soviet Union. By the end of the Cold War, as these period of history became known as, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on Earth several times over. This "Cold War" also brought a number of new technologies, and initiated a "battle for space" between the two greater powers. In 1957, the Soviet Union was the first to bring an artificial satellite, the Sputnik I in orbit around Earth. (ENT: "Carbon Creek") Four years later, in 1961, the Soviet Union was also the first to bring a human in space; Yuri Gagarin. In 1969, the United States was the first to land a man on the moon (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday"). The Cold War would end in the early 1990s, when the "Iron Curtain" that divided western and eastern Europe was torn down after the fall of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War affected much of the planet, leading the United States to support a number of dictatorial regimes in the Americas and Asia in an attempt to prevent other nations such as China or Cuba from falling into Communists hands. This policy lead to the tragic Vietnam War, in which the United States supported a murderous anti-Communist South Vietnamese regime and engaged in a number of sentient rights violations. The Cold War also became hot in the form of the Korean War, fought by UN forces against the aggressive Communist North Korea and its Red Chinese allies, and in the form of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. This invasion would later prompt the United States to provide material and financial support to a number of anti-Communist gurilla terrorist forces, among them a Saudi known as Osama bin Ladin. Eugenics Wars By the late 20th century, genetic engineering technology had produced a breed of artificial humans, known as Augments. Rising to power among others of their kind, several of these "superior" war lords conquered most of Earth's Third World in the early 1990s after the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War. One of the most notable of these was Khan Noonien Singh, still remembered as being one of history's most notorious dictators by the 24th century. (TOS: "Space Seed") In 1993, a number of conflicts between both the Augments and unallied nations, prompted in part by the political chaos of the end of the Cold War, erupted, eventually leading to upwards of 30 to 37 million deaths. In 1996, the last of the Augments, Khan, was overthrown. Khan and 79 of his Augment followers were launched aboard the prototype sleeper ship [[SS Botany Bay|S.S. Botany Bay]] that year; Earth's authorities hid the fact of Khan's escape from the general population, fearing mass panic. This did not prevent rumors from spreading of Khan's true whereabouts for almost two hundred years. Over one thousand Augment embryos that had not been implanted into Human hosts were detained; because of political dissent over whether or not the destruction of such embryos would constitute murder, they were placed in cold storage, eventually being transported to a joint Starfleet-Denobulan research facility known as Cold Station 12 in the 22nd Century. (TOS: "Space Seed," ENT: "Borderland," "Cold Station 12," "The Augments") (Two novels by author Greg Cox detail the Eugenics Wars and how they might fit into actual history, The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One and The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume Two. Surprisingly, none of the facts established by ''Enterprise about the Eugenics Wars contradict Cox's novels, though they are, of course, non-canonical.) :See also: Eugenics Wars. Terrorism and International Instability In addition to the chaos of the Eugenics Wars, international terrorism was on the rise following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the United States achieved unprecedented power, many from weaker nations came to resent its influence. Former Soviet enemy and US-allied terrorist Osama bin Ladin was among the most powerful of international terrorists, dedicating his international terrorist cabal, known as al-Qeada, to the destruction of the US and to the opposition of Western influence. While bin Ladin's attacks were mostly symbolic and politically ineffectual, many lives were lost in his so-called jihad. In particular, bin Ladin's agents managed to destroy the World Trade Center Towers and to attack the US military headquarters, the Pentagon, in early 2001, leading to nearly three thousand deaths and the adoption of an aggressive foreign policy by the US government. The international scene was further disrupted by the much-criticized conquest of the nation of Iraq by the United States in mid-2003. (ENT: "Storm Front, Part II," historical accounts) The Bell Riots The United States and much of the West was plagued by social problems in the 2020s. The Federal Employment Act was repealled in the US, and Sanctuary Districts were established in all of its major cities. These districts were originally created to help America's massive homeless and jobless population, with parts of cities being walled off. Instead, the districts became little more than prisions for the destitute and the mentally ill. In September of 2024, mounting tensions in the Sanctuary Districts culminated in the Bell Riots. Government hostages were taken by the residents of San Francisco's Sanctuary District A. Rioting occured when the US government moved to quell the protests, but thanks to the sacrifice of Gabriel Bell, a Santuary District resident and protestor, none of the hostages were killed. Details of the inhumane treatment of district residents reached the planetary Internet, contributing to the political unrest of the mid-21st Century. (DS9: "Past Tense, Part I," "Past Tense, Part II") :See also: Bell Riots. World War III By the mid-2000s, the international scene was deteriorating. The United Nations had been dissolved and replaced with another organization, known as the New United Nations. A number of nations joined together in a union known as the Eastern Coalition, or ECON, which opposed the United States and its allies. in the 2050s, a limited nuclear war broke out, World War III, which lasted until 2053. Approximately 600 million people lost their lives, most of the major governments collapsed, and the world was plunged into a second Great Depression. Many civilizations entered what came to be known as the post-atomic horror, with law and order degrading into a guilty-until-proven-innocent, lawyer-free show trial system which lasted until 2079 in some parts of the world. (Star Trek: First Contact, TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint, Part I") (Which areas were hit by nuclear weaponry is unknown, but the fact that such Western cities as San Fransisco, Paris, and New Orleans, combined with the decidedly Asian appearance of the Post-Atomic Horror trial audience and the surprising lack of references to prominent Eastern cities suggests that the Eastern Hemisphere may have been hurt the most by World War III.) :See also: World War III. United Earth Earth's First Contact with an alien species occured on April 5, 2063, when Dr. Zefram Cochrane made his first faster-then-light space flight aboard the Phoenix, thereby drawing the attention of a passing Vulcan vessel. (Star Trek: First Contact) The Vulcans soon established themselves on Earth, preventing Earth's warp program from evolving "too soon". It would take 88 more years before Earth's first true starship, the Enterprise (NX-01), was launched. (ENT: "Broken Bow") Although the different cultural identities among Humans remained, a United Earth Government unified all of Earth's population by the early 22nd century. In 2150, Australia was the last nation to join this united government. The UE government was successful in eradicating disease, hunger, and poverty by the 2150s, bringing about a new era of peace and liberty as the knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrials unites Humanity in a way no one had ever thought possible -- even though xenophobia against the Vulcans became quite prominent. Ties were made to the Denobulans through the Interspecies Medical Exchange, among other organizations. The UE government established the Earth Starfleet, a civilian organization dedicated to exploration and scientific advancement, and established a military, including the MACOs. Starfleet concerned much of its early years with attempts to develop advanced warp propulsion systems. The inventor of warp drive himself, Zefram Cochrane, disappeared in 2119, shortly after dedicating the Warp Five Complex. (Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Enterprise) :See also: United Earth Government In 2151, Earth's first warp 5-capable ship, the Enterprise (NX-01), was launched under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer, with T'Pol of Vulcan serving as his executive officer. The NX-01 blazed a trail of exploration for Earth, charting much of the Beta Quadrant and establishing Earth as an interstellar power. The NX-01 was also responsible for saving Earth from the Xindi and the Sphere Builders, and became important players in the conflict known as the Temporal Cold War, proving the existence of time travel for the first time in Human history while also proving instrumental in aiding forces from the 31st Century in ending the conflict. Archer and the NX-01 crew were later crucial to the establishment of the United Federation of Planets. (ENT: "Broken Bow," "The Xindi," "Zero Hour," et al). By 2154, Earth had expanded colonies in much of the Sol system, including the Moon and Mars, aswell as in the Alpha Centauri, and the Vega system (ENT: "Twilight") Romulan War The Earth-Romulan War was a conflict fought between Earth and the Romulan Star Empire in the late 2150s. The war ended with the Battle of Cheron, and the establishment of the Romulan Neutral Zone. (TOS: "Balance of Terror") :See also: Earth-Romulan War. Earth and its allies, being victorious in the war, would soon after, in 2161, establish the United Federation of Planets, unifying Andor, Earth, Tellar, and Vulcan under one single government. Earth was made the administrative centre of the Federation -- the capital planet, becoming one of the Federation's most important worlds. (ENT: "Zero Hour") :See also: United Federation of Planets. Following the establishment of the Federation, Earth became the target of a number of hostile foreign powers' wrath. Planetary emergencies were declared in 2273, when the artificial life-form known as V'Ger threatened all life on Earth, as did the Whale Probe in 2286. Earth was threatened with assimilation into the Borg Collective in late 2366 and late 2373, and was threatened with destruction from a thalaron radiation weapon created by the Reman leadership Shinzon aboard his flagship, the Scimitar in 2379. In 2375, towards the end of the Dominion War, Earth suffered a devestating attack at the hands of the Breen Confederacy, which had just joined the Dominion; much of Starfleet Headquarters' offices in San Fransisco were destroyed, as was much of the city itself. Numerous other cities were severly damaged, with large casualties, though the Federation Starfleet managed to destroy all enemy ships. A direct military assault on Earth had never been attempted by any other Alpha/Beta Quadrant power prior to the Breen attack on Earth, though a feared Jem'Hadar invasion had nearly led to a military coup d'etat on the capital planet in 2372. On the whole, however, Earth remained a paradise throughout the 23rd and 24th Centuries.